第90章

For the third time that day Mr Verloc was surprised.He stared stupidly at his wife.She continued in her steady manner.The boy, whenever he was not doing anything, moped in the house.It made her uneasy; it made her nervous, she confessed.And that from the calm Winnie sounded like exaggeration.

But in truth, Stevie moped in the striking fashion of an unhappy domestic animal.He would go up on the dark landing, to sit on the floor at the foot of the tall clock, with his knees drawn up and his head in his hands.

To come upon his pallid face, with its big eyes gleaming in the dusk, was discomposing; to think of him up there was uncomfortable.

Mr Verloc got used to the startling novelty of the idea.He was Fond of his wife as a man should be - that is, generously.But a weighty objection presented itself to his mind, and he formulated it.

`He'll lose sight of me perhaps, and get lost in the street,' he said.

Mrs Verloc shook her head competently.

`He won't.You don't know him.That boy just worships you.But if you should miss him--'

Mrs Verloc paused for a moment, but only for a moment.

`You just go on, and have your walk out.Don't worry.He'll be all right.

He's sure to turn up safe here before very long.'

This optimism procured for Mr Verloc his fourth surprise of the day.

`Is he?' he grunted doubtfully.But perhaps his brother-in-law was not such an idiot as he looked.His wife would know best.He turned away his heavy eyes, saying huskily: `Well, let him come along, then,' and relapsed into the clutches of black care, that perhaps prefers to sit behind a horseman, but knows also how to tread close on the heels of people not sufficiently well off to keep horses - like Mr Verloc, for instance.

Winnie, at the shop door, did not see this fatal attendant upon Mr Verloc's walks.She watched the two figures down the squalid street, one tall and burly, the other slight and short, with a thin neck, and the peaked shoulders raised slightly under the large semi-transparent ears.The material of their overcoats was the same, their hats were black and round in shape.

Inspired by the similarity of wearing apparel, Mrs Verloc gave rein to her fancy.

`Might be father and son,' she said to herself.She thought also that Mr Verloc was as much of a father as poor Stevie ever had in his life.

She was aware also that it was her work.And with peaceful pride she congratulated herself on a certain resolution she had taken a few years before.It had cost her some effort, and even a few tears.

She congratulated herself still more on observing in the course of days that Mr Verloc seemed to be taking kindly to Stevie's companionship.Now, when ready to go out for his walk, Mr Verloc called aloud to the boy, in the spirit, no doubt, in which a man invites the attendance of the household dog, though, of course, in a different manner.In the house Mr Verloc could be detected staring curiously at Stevie a good deal.His own demeanour had changed.Taciturn still, he was not so listless.Mrs Verloc thought that he was rather jumpy at times.It might have been regarded as an improvement.

As to Stevie, he moped no longer at the foot of the clock, but muttered to himself in corners instead in a threatening tone.When asked `What is it you're saying, Stevie?' he merely opened his mouth, and squinted at his sister.At odd times he clenched his fists without apparent cause, and when discovered in solitude would be scowling at the wall, with the sheet of paper and the pencil given him for drawing circles lying blank and idle on the kitchen table.This was a change, but it was no improvement.

Mrs Verloc, including all these vagaries under the general definition of excitement, began to fear that Stevie was hearing more than was good for him of her husband's conversations with his friends.During his `walks'

Mr Verloc, of course, met and conversed with various persons.It could hardly be otherwise.His walks were an integral part of his outdoor activities, which his wife had never looked deeply into.Mrs Verloc felt that the position was delicate, but she faced it with the same impenetrable calmness which impressed and even astonished the customers of the shop and made the other visitors keep their distance a little wonderingly.No! She feared that there were things not good for Stevie to hear of, she told her husband.

It only excited the poor boy, because he could not help them being so.

Nobody could.

It was in the shop.Mr Verloc made no comment.He made no retort, and yet the retort was obvious.But he refrained from pointing out to his wife that the idea of making Stevie the companion of his walks was her own, and nobody else's.At that moment, to an impartial observer, Mr Verloc would have appeared more than human in his magnanimity.He took down a small cardboard box from a shelf, peeped in to see that the contents were all right, and put it down gently on the counter.Not till that was done did he break the silence, to the effect that most likely Stevie would profit greatly by being sent out of town for a while; only he supposed his wife could not get on without him.

`Could not get on without him!' repeated Mrs Verloc, slowly.`I couldn't get on without him if it were for his good! The idea! Of course, I can get on without him.But there's nowhere for him to go.'

Mr Verloc got out some brown paper and a ball of string; and meanwhile he muttered that Michaelis was living in a little cottage in the country.

Michaelis wouldn't mind giving Stevie a room to sleep in.There were no visitors and no talk there.Michaelis was writing a book.

Mrs Verloc declared her affection for Michaelis; mentioned her abhorrence of Karl Yundt, `nasty old man'; and of Ossipon she said nothing.As to Stevie, he could be no other than very pleased.Mr Michaelis was always so nice and kind to him.He seemed to like the boy.Well, the boy was a good boy.

`You, too, seem to have grown quite fond of him of late,' she added, after a pause, with her inflexible assurance.